


Bedroom So Cold

by plastics



Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Cannibalistic Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Isolation, M/M, Psychological Horror, Snowed In, Starvation, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-09
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-10-13 00:50:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20573738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plastics/pseuds/plastics
Summary: The light outside their window was hazy when they woke up. Andrew couldn’t guess what time it was, but he felt the well-rested sort of groggy. His stomach grumbled unhappily.





	Bedroom So Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BiffElderberry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiffElderberry/gifts).

It snows in Chicago. This wasn’t shocking. Honestly, after their second flight got canceled, Andrew was mostly just happy they managed to get out of O’Hare and into a hotel, especially once it really started coming down. Their room isn’t even that far up, but the white haze obscured everything more than a foot or so from the window.

But it was_ fine. _Local news warned to stay indoors but assured them the storm would be blowing north without much of a fuss by tomorrow night. A ticker running at the bottom of basic cable channels listed off closings for tomorrow. The front desk apologized profusely for their kitchen being closed and assured them that the hotel would comp up to thirty dollars from the snack stash in their room.

“Nice,” Adam said, and then Annie and he headed to their own room to decimate their own supply.

The snacks were not what Andrew himself would have picked out, but it was still exciting to have an excuse to tear into a few bags. Most of them are oversalted, or stale, or tasteless in the way food gets when its makers want it to both be all-natural and mass-produced. Still, junk food inherently developed its own charm when you get paid to eat months’ worth of paychecks. It wouldn’t make for a great dinner, but the bags spread out across the bed reminded Andrew of a more grown-up, shittier Halloween night.

“I will trade you _ three _dark chocolate blueberries,” Andrew said, “for one jalapeno-cheddar chip.”

“You can just take one for yourself, Andrew,” Steven replied, teasing, but continues, “Besides, why would I want your fancy raisins?”

And so it went. Not exactly filling, but enough. Andrew drank three cups of water out of the sink before bed. It came out of the tap ice cold.

* * *

The light outside their window was hazy when they woke up. Andrew couldn’t guess what time it was, but he felt the well-rested sort of groggy. His stomach grumbled unhappily. He rolled over to check his phone—late in the morning, no messages. The charge was lower than it was last night. The power must have gone out. Maybe the generator gave priority sourcing?

Andrew put his battery on low power and texted Adam, asking if he’d heard anything about their flight. In the bed next to him, Steven began to stir, crawling out of the cocoon he’s made of the duvet. He wished he wasn’t such a sucker for the slow unfurl, dusted pink hair poking out, the stretch of his arms, eyes slowly blinking open.

“Lo,” Steven said eventually, voice groggy.

“Good morning,” Andrew said. “I don’t think we’re leaving today.”

“Oh nooo,” Steven replied before rolling back over and pulling the blankets back up.

* * *

Adam didn’t respond. Neither did Annie, or the front desk, or anyone else Andrew tried to get contact. His phone never even got confirmation that the messages sent. When he opened his laptop, it wouldn’t connect to the hotel wifi anymore. Andrew felt like a parody of his generation for being so disturbed by all this.

He felt more ridiculous telling Steven all this, who just said, “Okay, so we don’t have service? That sucks. You know their room number, right?”

Andrew did. 

Or, at least he thought he did. They both shoved on slightly less stale clothes and head into the hallway. It took a moment to orientate themselves. Hotels all look the same, in every direction, and they’d been tired last night. They take off in what feels like the right direction. The plaques didn’t make the most sense, but that was fine, except—

“You said 237, right?” Steven said.

“Yeah,” Andrew agreed, and then, “No, wait, that’s _ The Shining. _ 302? It’s…” 

He trailed off. He _ felt _like he knew it, the answer right at the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t hold it in his mind long enough to get it out of his mouth. They were all on the same floor, weren’t they? And close. The hotel was fairly small for being the type to prey on airport fallout. They’d felt lucky to find two rooms here.

The room numbers seemed largely random, anyway, which was certainly a choice to make. They walked in what seemed like a circle trying to get towards something that made sense, until Steven came to a stop in front of a door.

“Is this it?” he asked.

“Sure,” Andrew said, except it wasn’t, he knew that much, but he thinks Steven had the same feeling—just to check. The halls had been quiet. They hadn’t run into anyone. No sound drifted past the doors. And maybe the walls were particularly well-insulated, or their fellow guests were unusually polite, but it all felt strange. 

Steven knocked, then knocked again, harder. Nothing.

“Maybe it was actually across the hall?” Andrew asked.

“Oh, yeah, that sounds right,” Steven said.

They tried again. And again. No response, from anyone. 

For how long they spend wandering, it didn’t take long to get back to their room. Both of them forgot the key cards, but they could get in anyway.

They didn’t talk about it. There wasn’t anything to say. The curtains were still cracked open. Dreary, gray light poured thick into the room.

From his bed, Steven’s stomach growled a deep rumble. 

* * *

They waited a few days to touch the rest of the snack stash. Or Andrew guessed it’d been that long; their phones died eventually, and peering out the window didn’t provide any hints. Just the same cascading fall. Sometimes, when he squinted at where the ground should be, he wondered if that, at least, was getting more solidly white. But he wasn’t sure.

The halls didn’t start making sense. Once, they found elevators, but they didn’t work, either. The stairs were… worse.

Steven said, after a long period of silence, “Do you remember the Peking duck episode? The _ spread _at Hwa Yuan Szechuan—”

“Stop,” Andrew groaned. “I would kill for lasagna. Full family-sized.”

Steven laughed. It’s amazing how human food can make you feel. The parts of you that cave in without it.

* * *

The heat turned off.

It took Andrew awhile to pinpoint how, exactly, the room got even quieter. The cold seeped in steadily. A chill. Goosebumps. Steven exhales, and a ghostly wisp comes out.

They pile all the blankets onto the bed farthest from the window. There aren’t any extras in the closet, so they fit some towels between the sheets and the duvet. At one point, Andrew had torn up a notebook to turn it into a deck of cards. The suites and numbers were barely readable. There were two six of clubs and no jokers. The bed’s soft enough that their pens poked through when they try playing dots and boxes on the backs.

When Steven’s hand didn’t move to take his turn, Andrew glanced up to his face. His eyes were blinking slowly, mostly closed. The sight makes his heart squeeze with a true bit of warmth. He didn’t overthink reaching out and just barely letting his fingertips just touch Steven’s arm, cool but smooth. 

Steven’s eyes snapped open.

“Andrew.”

“I’m just cold.”

“You don’t know cold,” Steven said. “Try living in Ohio your whole life.”

“Uh, I don’t know what kind of tropical paradise you’re imagining New Jersey as—”

Steven laughed, and Andrew used it as an excuse to roll just a little closer. He watched Steven process the movement, his eyes jerking to meet Andrew’s and then back to his shoulders, some space behind him, before settling back on Andrew.

This wasn’t something they did. Not as a rule, but. Andrew liked to think that they’d had time. They’d had time to grow as coworkers, friends, creators. And Steven wasn’t single for most of that. There were a lot of factors. Andrew hadn’t wanted to rush anything.

But it hurt, in that bed, to be that close, for Steven to press their foreheads together, let their noses brush, press their cheeks together, so close with everything in the room piled on top of them—then pull back and roll over. The hurt was hot, too, so Andrew let himself feel the disappointment like he usually didn’t as he stared at the hard line down Steven’s back.

* * *

Steven kept searching the halls. Andrew went with him the first couple of times—didn’t like getting split up—but being out there felt wrong somehow, fundamentally, and it wasn’t like they had energy to waste. So he kept his eyes on the window. The glass wasn’t any cooler than any other part of the room, odd enough.

“What are you even hoping to find?” Andrew snapped, eventually, one time after Steven was gone for hours and hours and hours. He was scared, he could admit to himself. Not sure how much good it’d do to tell Steven.

It’s not that Andrew had never seen Steven nervous before, frantic, overworking himself to drive off anxiety. But the look on his face now was too blank for that. Hollowed out.

“I found Adam and Annie,” he said, flat. 

“Oh.” Andrew watched as Steven dug another sweatshirt out of his carryon. He’d lost his shoes at some point, or maybe got rid of them. He stands listing at the bed for a long minute before folding onto his knees, not gracefully but with an inevitable force. 

Praying, probably. Andrew left him to it.

* * *

Andrew had been dismissive of dried blueberries, he decided. How sweet it is against bitter chocolate.

* * *

One day, Andrew woke up with Steven’s mouth on his neck.

It didn’t feel real. Not any more real than anything else. Andrew was so, so tired, and Steven was gone most of the time, now.

But there was a weight pushing him into the mattress and an insistent wetness at his neck. When he raised his arms, they came in contact with a solidness that was not himself. Steven felt good. Thin, but he’d always been. Vital.

“Andrew,” Steven moans, and, god, that was exactly how he imagined, “I’m so hungry.”

And Andrew understood that, too. _ Hungry _didn’t even begin to cover it. His stomach felt like all of him, like it’d burst and turned inside-out and consumed everything. He could smell the salt between them. When Steven’s teeth settled against his neck, Andrew could only think of one thing mouths were good for.

He shuddered hard when Steven bit harder. His skin broke, and he could feel the heat of his blood as it poured out of him. It surprised him, on some level, like the cold and this room had drained him completely. Andrew’s hands tightened its grasp on the back of Steven’s neck, but not to pull him back.

Steven was the one who pulled back first. Red dripped from his mouth, down his chin. His eyes were wide and bright and alive as he asked, “Andrew?”

A pool of warmth was growing beneath Andrew. It felt nice, knowing that it could still come from him, even as his fingertips started to tingle. It stung, but he nodded. Andrew could do this, he thought. It’d be worth it.

Steven leaned down again, and his breath was so warm. They tasted so good.


End file.
